25 July 2010

Stephen Fry discusses atheism

...and I love how when people watch I don’t know, David Attenborough or Discovery Planet type thing you know where you see the absolute phenomenal majesty and complexity and bewildering beauty of nature and you stare at it and then… and somebody next to you goes, “And how can you say there is no God?” “Look at that.” And then five minutes later you’re looking at the lifecycle of a parasitic worm whose job is to bury itself in the eyeball of a little lamb and eat the eyeball from inside while the lamb dies in horrible agony and then you turn to them and say, “Yeah, where is your God now?” You know I mean you got… You can’t just say there is a God because well, the world is beautiful. You have to account for bone cancer in children. You have to account for the fact that almost all animals in the wild live under stress with not enough to eat and will die violent and bloody deaths. There is not any way that you can just choose the nice bits and say that means there is a God and ignore the true fact of what nature is...

3 comments:

Very well said and powerful. I wouldn't say one needs a God (or gods or whatever higher force you need to get you through the day) to have a moral framework. The original argument as I understood it, before it was dumbed down by sincere but not firing on all cylinders folk, is that you need a God for it to ultimately meaningful.

The idea goes thusly, Given the shelf life of the universe compared to the lifespan of us mere humans then everything we do is ultimately meaningless. Even if you were king of the world, what good you do would fade not even to memories after humanity goes extinct or evolves on or whatever. Imagine a stream, put your hand in, and the water swirls around till it forms the original path. Even if you could block the whole stream it would just eventual go around or over and again back to as it was.

This, in this argument, is where God comes in. God isn't in the stream so to say. Being Eternal without beginning or end, what God says or does will matter even when the universe in dust. So then, if we align ourselves with God and with his ideas we will also be part of that greater whole that transcends mortality.

Very good statement Lazarus. I wonder how your idea realates to the concept of Hell or Eternal Damnation. If everything we do is ultimately meaningless in the great span of the Universe, then how is that some will end up in Hell?

If we are alive for but a brief blip in the time span of the Universe, how is it that anything we do could have an effect until the end of time? Also, God made us Sinners and then punishes us for eternity for being how he made us. Hardly seems fair and just.

Well and here we dive full into apologetics. On the one hand someone might say "God, is not punishing since he is not forcing anyone into hell, and is affording humanity every instance to be saved."

But then the other person would say, "Wait a minute, what about when God as an example harded Pharoah's heart? More to the point as the ultimate creator of the universe doesn't he bear ultimate responsiblity."

And so it goes. I will merely say that assume as you introduce the concept of "1" then you also introduce the concept of "not 1," and if you are in a quantum state of mind, "Maybe 1."

"Tai-wiki-widbee" is an eclectic mix of trivialities, ephemera, curiosities, and exotica with a smattering of current events, social commentary, science, history, English language and literature, videos, and humor. We try to be the cyberequivalent of a Victorian cabinet of curiosities.

Category: Best New Blog

Translate

Search TYWKIWDBI

About Me

I'm using an old photo of my grandfather as an avatar; he would have been amused.
Old friends, classmates, students, former colleagues, or distant relatives are welcome to email me via retag4726 (at) mypacks.net